Squad Based Tactics, And Preconfig

[sAdIsTiCmAcHiNe]

My idea:

 

Some squad members could be put into a fireteam with other squad members. Once in this team, any time the player moves the team leader, the rest of the squad members on the team automatically move with him, propperly covering the flanks and rear, finding a covered position once they arrive, etc.

 

The team would be able to correctly clear rooms inside the UFO (even if not specifically coded with a clear behavior, by simply covering all directions as mentioned they would be naturally effective at this) and keep each other out of harm's way.

 

An obstacle to this would be if some squaddies did not have the TUs to keep up with their leader. One solution would be to forgive TUs to the secondary team members, but give them a heavy energy penalty for going over their normal TU limit. In compensation, the other team members learn from their squad leader, and gain skills more quickly.

 

Another idea:

 

Users should be able to configure a soldier's equipment in the craft armament settings, rather than have to set it up on every mission. They should be able to set which soldier carries what in what space by default for every mission.

 

Rather than having these settings belong to the soldier himself, however, they should belong to a particular "spot" on the team, so if the soldier dies, his replacement need only be put into the same "spot" to inherit all his predecessor's settings.

 

The pre-battle item screen should still appear so that the player can make last minute decisions about taking any other equipment that might happen to be loose aboard the craft.

 

The fireteams should also be configured in the craft settings (who wants to do that every mission?)